Explosion at Fox Island Sparks End-of-World Fears

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · December 18, 1879

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 54, No. 25

Explosion at Fox Island Sparks End-of-World Fears

The terrific explosion of about three tons of nitro-glycerine and mica powder at Fox Island, near the mouth of the Detroit River, Dec. 12, “caused,” says a report, “a general belief in that vicinity that the end of the world had come.” An explosion which demolished windows for miles around, and was felt forty miles away, would naturally cause people to think that something had taken place; but why should the idea of the end of the world come so quickly to their minds? Why is this always the first thought when any startling occurrence takes place? Does it not show that the preaching of this doctrine has made such an impression upon the minds of people everywhere, that it has caused them to place this foremost in every sudden fear, or to cherish, if we may so speak, an unconscious or latent expectation of this great coming event?